For the next few years, the game is going to be won by skill rather than luck or “friendly” appraisers, loan brokers and lenders.  This skill is going to take two completely different tracks.  The principal track will be based upon the entrepreneur being able to negotiate seller financing on terms that make holding a house over the long term as a positive cash-flow rental; then being able to manage it so it will attract the right tenants, who will pay the right rents without any government assistance, and who will renew their lease year after year.  Obviously this is likely to require skills that . . . read the rest of the story

          In the race between the tortoise and the hare, if the hares are wheeler-dealers, managers are the turtles.  Over the years I’ve noticed that the high-flyers of yesterday never seem to get to the finish line.  Bill Zeckendorf and Bill Levitt were two of the giants who went broke after making billions of dollars.  Why?  There’s a simple reason for this; those who buy and sell make a lot of money while they’re doing it, but they have four adversaries that rob them of success. 

    Different States treat debt obligations differently; so borrowing money to buy houses carries different levels of risk associated with financing.  In California, a person can owe hundreds of thousands of dollars on a house, and if things don’t work out, simply hand the house back to the lender and walk away without any liability.  But, in many States, if you personally guarantee a loan, even after a house is foreclosed, you will still have to pay any losses the lender incurs if the house sells for less than the loan balance.  You could spend years working to repay off what you owe while the interest-clock ticked on.

          Just about everything that a person can do with a conventional home can be done with a mobile home.  You can find homes to rent or buy simply by canvassing mobile home owners.  Keeping in mind that Mobile Homes are personal property and not real estate, real estate laws that would preclude a person paying another person for performing real estate services without a license don’t apply.  You can turn mobile home park managers into “bird dogs” by paying them for leads to motivated sellers.  You can hire capable unlicensed people to manage a collection of mobile home rentals.  When maintaining a Mobile Home, because of restricted space, repairs can present a challenge.  The good news is that you can make extensive repairs without the need for permits or licensed workmen.  Where you interface with utility connections or public throughways you will have to be careful to meet all the requirements, but otherwise, except for safety and minimum housing considerations, local building codes usually don’t apply.